The school year in most states is dictated by the state. Actually, it’s most likely to be a specified number of instructional minutes for the school year. The days in school should encompass the minutes.

Are the number of days spent in school important? Are they more important than the quality of the days? Which is more important? It is a question that is coming to the front of the class in California this year. Lack of funding may require a cut in the school year.

Ed Lascher, an associate dean at California State University, Sacramento, is the acting director of the Center for California Studies. He recently penned an article for the Sacramento Bee, based on research by two other professors at Sac State.

Lascher’s closing comment in the article is that the “…idea that we can shave a few days here and there from the school calendar without harming learning outcomes” should be called “…wishful thinking.”

The research, which he described as “vigorous” was published by Su Jin Jez, and Robert Wassmer, both of whom are Sac State profs.

Their research was funded by the state Senate’s Office of Research’s faculty research fellows program. The funding is, according to the Bee, administered by Sac States Center for California Studies, which is where Lascher comes in.

The term “vigorous” research in connection with anything that has to do with education always catches the Eduskeptics attention. Educational research is not always what one would term “vigorous”. Quite often it is simply is anything but that.

The title of the paper is The Impact of Learning Time on Academic Achievement *. I read the paper, twice. It is rigorous and seems to have been thoroughly thought out and written. It is one of the few papers the Eduskeptic has read that includes the confusing array of issues that live everyday in every classroom in the nation.

Jez and Wassmer used something called regression analysis, a statistical method that allows for “control for other explanatory factors besides learning time that may cause differences in observed standardized test scores” in their research. It’s a good thing to do when addressing educational issues.

In any research about learning, being able to control, at any level, for the complex assortment of things that effect how a child learns is critical. Without at least a passing nod to the plethora of factors that make up the learning day, conclusions are difficult, if not impossible, to accept.

The long and short of their research is that the amount of time spent in school does, along with other very important factors, effect how a child learns. “Child” in this case covers the K-12 spectrum.

The paper is 26 pages long, which includes the intro and bibliography. On pages 22 and 23, there are some extremely interesting points raised.

In three paragraphs on these 2 pages they make it quite clear that the instructional day is impacted by multifaceted issues, one of which is the length of the day. It is important to note that these issues are inter-related, and one alone does not trump any of the others in importance.

Whether this bit of research will have any impact on the legislators or the Governor here in California is an unknown. Someone in the chambers will actually have to read it, which may be too much to ask. Hopefully, the Eduskeptic will be proved wrong in his lack of faith in the politicos in Sacramento.

As always, assume nothing, verify everything. Read the article, then the research paper. Let me know what you think.